Molly Makes Coconut Grilled Chicken, Steak and Shrimp

[clapping]

Hello boys and girls.

[peppy music]

Today we're gonna make spicy coconut grilled chicken thighs,

which is a recipe that I created with the intent

of creating a very simple all-purpose summer marinade

that could really be applied to any protein.

I'm gonna take you through the steps of making it.

It's very simple.

And then I'll show you how we can apply it

to shrimp, grilled chicken thighs,

and strip steak, skirt steak.

Why can't I get that right?

It's skirt steak.

The thing that makes this marinade so delicious

is that it's super super punchy.

And therefore requires only 15 minutes of marinating time

to really impart a lot of flavor.

So if you want a lot of bang for your buck

in a marinade go hard on the flavor

if you don't have a lot of time to marinate.

That said, you could keep chicken, shrimp, or steak

in this marinade for up to three or four hours,

and it will only get better with time.

I'm gonna grate three inches of fresh ginger

into my marinating bowl.

And you'll notice that I didn't peel the ginger.

Because I never peel ginger.

Because I don't understand why people peel ginger.

Someone just decided one day like,

gotta take the peel off, and then everyone

started wasting their time with a spoon.

When really you could just eat it

and you would never know it was there.

Unless it's really old and knobbly.

In which case you shouldn't be using it anyway.

Three inches is a lot of ginger,

but like I said, we're making a super punchy marinade.

That feels good.

Lightly smashing with the side of a knife

five garlic cloves.

One, two, three, four. [banging]

And then we grate those boys right in there.

If you don't have a microplane,

you could throw this all in a food processor.

Or a blender actually, for that matter.

Or a NutriBullet.

Or you could use a garlic press, I guess.

I hate 'em, hate garlic presses.

Five of those in the guy.

Oh, I'm gonna put these in the compost

'cause we compost now.

You guys wanna come see the compost?

Lets' go. [peppy music]

You know what, I'm gonna do everyone a favor

and I'm gonna get rid of everyone's compost.

There's Morocco's coffee grinds.

Do you guys have any compostables?

Can I take that for you?

[Woman] Oh thank you.

Right this way.

Because Gabby, our Test Kitchen manager,

did a great thing and badgered the building enough

that they finally allowed us to have a compost.

So this is new and fabuloso.

All right. Thank you, Molly.

You're welcome.

So I'm going to juice both of these.

I'm looking for about a quarter cup of lime juice.

This is an extremely juicy boy.

I mean you barely even have to, it's just, look at that.

Just over one quarter cup.

We'll call it a quarter cup.

Whisking together the lime juice,

the grated ginger, and the grated garlic.

I'm gonna add a quarter cup of this chili garlic sauce,

which is called sambal oelek.

It's basically a very spicy garlicky chili paste.

So that's gonna bring a lot of heat.

Two tablespoons of light brown sugar

for a little bit of sweetness.

A whole tablespoon of salt.

And then three quarters of a cup of full-fat coconut milk.

Whisky-whisk.

[splashing]

And then, in goes two pounds

of boneless skinless chicken thighs.

A great cut of chicken for the grill

because having no skin on them

means that they will not flare up,

cause fires, burn, the skin won't curl up.

These pups are going in for about 15 minutes, or longer.

And then we'll preheat the grill,

clean up a little, and head over.

No one tells me anything.

If I tell you you can't say anything.

You can't say... No, tell me.

I wanna know this stuff.

You need to stop doing this, we're talking here.

[Cameraman] We're not doing anything.

Turn the mics off.

In the meantime these chicken thighs have marinated.

And I forgot to put the vegetable oil in

'cause I was too busy gossiping with Andy.

So I'm streaming in just a couple tablespoons of oil

because otherwise they will stick to the grill.

And then I also happen to have some skirt steak,

not strip steak, in the same marinade.

[laughing]

Something funny happened.

And some shrimps in the marinade, also.

Shrimp doesn't need to marinade as long

as the chicken or the steak.

Just to demonstrate the versatility of this marinade

we're gonna cook all of them.

Let me see if I can bring this entire board over.

I'm super strong.

[peppy music]

[yelling]

Okay, just whatever you do, don't turn the burners on

'cause there's a cutting board on there now.

I'm pulling them out of the marinade,

transferring them to a baking sheet.

And then I'm going to cook down

the rest of the marinade that's left.

We're going to be glazing with that later on.

I've got a plan.

Okay, lemme take them all out.

I don't wanna cross-contaminate all of these

different proteins so we're gonna actually

reduce all the marinades separately.

But we'll do some of that off-camera

so you don't have to watch three different marinades reduce.

Anyway, on the recipe page, there were some comments

about salmonella and food poisoning

related to this recipe.

And I would just like to say that,

as long as you make sure to cook down the marinade,

which means bring it to a boil,

which kills any bacteria that might be in the marinade

from the raw chicken, there's no way

that you're going to get sick.

So don't worry about it.

And I'm very sorry for the people

who did get food poisoning,

but I think it was unrelated, personally.

Did that sound sincere?

Anyway.

Seriously, truthfully, you're not gonna get sick from this

because we're going to boil this,

and it's gonna kill any bacteria.

Cook your marinade, folks.

That's the biggest takeaway of the day.

What this is also gonna do is concentrate

all of the flavors and thicken it a bit

so that it's more of a glaze when it

goes onto the chicken, after the chicken's been grilled.

We're gonna baste with it.

And so it'll kinda get lacquered in this shiny,

bright orange, zippy, zingy sauce.

This reduces for two to three min--

Hold on. Oh, we lost a camera.

Zippy and zingy, those are good words

for food that I never use.

I feel like people always say tangy.

No one says zippy or zingy.

Oh, we're boiling.

Anybody care to take a look.

[Cameraman] Why not?

So we're boiling, killing all that bad stuff.

You can see this is turning bright orange.

And it's thickening a bit.

I'm gonna let it go a little bit further,

but not too much because it's also

gonna continue to cook as it's being basted onto

the shrimp, the chicken, and the steak on the grill.

Okay, I feel good about this.

We can also just leave this on the grill, kinda nearby.

Like right here.

And then here we go.

We'll do a little chicken zone over here.

This grill is preheated to medium in the chicken zone.

And I'm not gonna cross-contaminate with the steak either.

This is the order of the tongs.

Chicken, steak, shrimp.

Get these things outta here.

I feel like I'm like in service on the line.

And it's a little bit hectic.

Chicken, steak, shrimp.

I'm a professional.

Chicken, steak, shrimp.

Chicken, steak, shrimp.

Okay.

I'm so nervous.

That's looking pretty nice.

Should we give that a flip?

That's okay, there's a lot of fat in this steak.

Now I'm brushing with this reduced steak marinade.

[sizzling]

Chicken.

Ready.

That guy flipped.

So now I'm basting chicken with chicken.

We're glazing.

Be generous with it.

This stuff is delicious.

Shrimp's going on 'cause they take two to three minutes

and I feel like we're two to three minutes out on chicken.

And of course we're gonna be basting those

with their own marinade.

Steak is ready to come off the grill.

We're gonna have a nice mixed grill platter over here.

I'm gonna give these chickens one more baste.

They've been cooking for probably five six minutes.

Maybe give 'em another three or four.

Shrimp.

Shrimp cook super super fast so the best way

to get good color on them is to leave them

for the longest period of time, a couple of minutes

on one side, and then just kind of

kiss them on the other side.

You're never really gonna get good

charred grill marks all over shrimp without it overcooking.

So choose a side.

All right, chicken.

Did you guys think I wasn't gonna be able to do this?

[Cameraman] Yeah, I'm very impressed, I gotta say.

It seemed like a uh...

Hectic, a little bit hectic?

[Cameraman] Yeah, a little hectic.

A little confusing.

It was.

There's our little chicken pile.

With our chicken tongs.

Gonna give these guys a little fliparoony.

They will turn opaque when they are done.

And really it's like three minutes.

There's nothing worse than overcooked shrimp.

That's for sure.

And they're gonna keep cooking as they rest.

Another minute and then we'll pull all those off.

And have a little surf and turf.

A spicy coconut surf and turf.

You know what I love while I'm grilling?

A beer on ice.

Beer on ice, a little bit of lemon juice,

and a little bit of simple syrup.

Nothing more refreshing than that.

Except for maybe water.

I love water, as we know.

I tend to have a ferocious thirst.

Today I'm just ferociously hot.

It's hot in here.

Okay.

You guys are done.

Voila.

Three different applications of this spicy coconut marinade.

I'm gonna cut 'em up, flip this around.

Looking for the grain, which very clearly

on a skirt steak goes one direction.

You can see all the muscle fibers running this way.

Which means I'm gonna cut across the grain, like this.

So that it's not chewy.

That looks yummy and delicious.

Like something I wanna eat.

Wow, it's so tender.

The marinade really really tenderizes the meat.

If you could taste this you would know that.

But I guess you'll just have to make it.

Oh my god, it feels so good in my fingers.

I just have to eat this.

[peppy music]

Mm!

Wow that's a spicy boy.

Morocco?

Yeah.

I think you're gonna wanna get in on this.

I'm just like feeling this steak right now.

Flying in for a nug. Fly in for a nug.

Just a quick nug.

He's nuggin'.

Okay.

And then the final finishing touch here,

some nice sprigs of fresh cilantro to brighten it up

after spending all that time

in the marinade and on the grill.

Something fresh and herbal.

It's nice to get like nice big long plooshes.

And then some limes for people to squeeze as they go.

So that's a double whammy.

Look at that big ole mixed grill.

That's a mixed grill if I've ever seen one.

[Andy] Le surf and turf.

Le surf et le turf.

There's something really special

about the way coconut milk behaves as a marinade.

The way it gets concentrated and clingy,

and it stays saucy and juicy.

Yeah. You know.

Especially when you cook it down.

[Chris] Like when you cook it down.

Can I serve you some steak?

Oh no, no.

Oh, you'll have some steak.

I feel like the meat is so tender after spending just,

I don't know, one hour in the marinade.

That's plenty of time.

It definitely has a kick to it.

Yeah, there's a lot of sambal in here.

Sorry I didn't get knives.

It's like very warm, I mean,

it's not like punitive.

I would never wanna punish you.

Oh.

Me on the other hand.

Punish the shit out of you.

[Chris] Oh yeah, Andy's like in trouble with Molly.

I live for that.

All the time.

Andy just told me I'm the Tonya Harding of the kitchen.

I did not say that, Brad's the one.

Actually Chris said it.

He was like, I bet you're like out there

just like slaying people's ankles.

I am not.

I'm a sweet sweet girl.